Aunt Sophie,

2. Aunt Sophie, I am still working a loom and boarding at the Hamilton Mills in Massachusetts. Not much has changed since I last wrote to you. Since it is now summer, we work terribly long shifts, usually from 5 am to 7 pm. With very little time for meal breaks and the sweltering heat, many of the workers, especially the children, are growing faint and often fall asleep beside the dangerous looms. The air is tainted with the fumes of the lamps. That same air is so full of cotton fibers that it appears as if a cloud lives in the factory. I feel especially sorry for the children. They have no time for school- and even less time to play. Their hands bleed and their bare feet are blistered. My heart aches for them. Mrs. Haddie’s son, Jackson, lost his left arm last month in a terrible accident when his shirt became entangled in the loom. Oh, Sophie, this is not turning out like I thought it would. The boarding conditions are awful and the factory pay is minimal. But we are so tired and worn that we don’t have time to care. I am certain that this is not the life my father, your brother, envisioned for us. Now that he is gone, I can only pray for a better way of life. Love, Eliza R. Hemmingway Madame Sophie Lloyd 38 Percy Avenue Wakefield, West Yorkshire England From Massachusetts House Document, no. 50, March, l845.  Reprinted in John Commons, ed., A Documentary History of American Industrial Society (1910). http://library.uml.edu/clh/All/lab00.htm